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Published: October 10th 2006
People left me some really good comments after my last posting about Fuji and I just want to say thanks for the support. The couple of weeks following that entry were really tough for me (as some of you know) as I was feeling really homesick. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary - just some feelings of isolation and misunderstanding that made me think more wistfully of home. I’m not sure what set it off but I definitely started feeling bad during the Japanese course I attended with the other ALTs at KAPIC. I felt disappointed in quite a few of the people I met there and I started wondering if this was really the right program for me. When I got back to Shibushi the feelings just didn’t go away.
I felt frustrated with some of the Japanese English teachers, with the whole education system actually, and I didn’t find that the ALTs living nearby were any better than the ones I hadn’t liked at KAPIC. Andrew had been down for a couple of weeks about his broken rib (suspected to have happened while he tried to crowd surf at an ALT drinking party) and he is really
Manako
My shy little host sister. She's a real sweetie, though.terrible when he complains. He looked like he was dying every day for about two weeks straight and his reactions toward me felt like dismissals, which I did not appreciate, especially when I was begging for ideas for my classes. At some points it felt like I could just be happy if I didn’t have to see him every day at school.
It also didn’t help that my house was crawling with spiders - nothing dangerous, just some fast-moving, omnipresent, huntsman spiders. Everyone tells me that they’re good and they’re just cleaning all the other bugs out of my house but they still put me out. No amount of self-persuasion can rid me of my fear, especially when my encounters with them are so unexpected. Last Thursday, as I was brushing my teeth, a sizeable one came crawling out from behind my bathroom mirror! It’s also quite a shock when they fall from the top of my front doorway as I leave for school in the morning (this sometimes happens with geckos, too). The invasion has made me very cautious in my house and I am always opening doors slowly now, and doing a scan of every room as
I walk into it. Even if I can’t kill them all, I like to know where they are.
The last straw was the fact that I was at school about 10 hours a day for a week and a half. Some of our students were trying to learn a skit that Andrew and I had prepared for an ESL competition and we (mostly I) were coaching them intensively to get their pronunciation and intonation to sound natural. It was rewarding but draining at the same time and left me with only a few hours in the evening to go swimming and have dinner and no time for anything personal like blogging, reading or cleaning.
So I was depressed even though I’d been keeping busy and fairly active. At my lowest point reading e-mails and seeing pictures from home was enough to make me cry and thinking about the spiders made it worse. I tried to rationalize to myself that this was normal for being two months in and I think my feelings were comparable to those I had in Mali after the first month (by my second month I knew I would be going home soon and started
Korean Kyoshi
My little host brother in traditional Korean garb. He wasn't very happy because the outfit was so warm! to appreciate the culture and my surroundings again); but knowing that it was a phase didn’t seem to change anything. I spoke to Sarah and my mom last Friday and Saturday respectively and unloaded my complaints on both of them.
Actually hearing voices from home helped because it reminded me that I could at least talk to someone who understood me if I really needed to. But I think what pulled me out completely was my visit with my host family. After my last visit with them we had scheduled another home stay weekend so that I could attend the kids’ elementary school’s Sports Festival. I had also mentioned that I wanted to go to South Korea over Christmas so Yoshimi suggested we go to a symposium at the Kanoya Sports University on Saturday that was going to be attended by some South Korean exchange students.
The symposium was actually entirely in Japanese (though they were talking at some point about Wilfred Laurier University in Ontario) so I spent Saturday morning pretending to listen and feeling sorry for my host kids who had been dragged along with us. The afternoon was better as we were taken to the
Yoshimi and Me
Yoshimi and I are both in the middle (just in case you didn't recognize me! ;) gymnasium for a traditional Japanese dance/martial art demonstration and then were invited to tour a bunch of stations set up by the Korean students where we got to pose for photos in traditional dress or play traditional games. It was great to play with the kids and have a photo shoot with Yoshimi, and I also got to meet some of the ALTs that live in or near Kanoya (some new people to hang out with when things don’t jive so well with the guys nearby).
Saturday night we had dinner at a yakiniku (fried meat) restaurant. The meat was delicious but I discovered that there is one thing in Japanese cuisine that I do not like - it’s called
oden and consists of root-vegetables and tofu simmered in some kind of fish broth. I think I have a problem with the broth because it makes foods that I would ordinarily enjoy (like potatoes, fried tofu squares, etc.) a challenge to eat and makes foods that I don’t particularly like (such as bamboo shoots, smelly fish, and this grey jelly with black specks called “konyaku”) gag-inducing.
Anyway, we got home at about 7:30 and everyone was in bed
Kyosh
Kyoshi celebrating a good throw in one of the games. by 8. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but I knew that I had signed myself up to help Yoshimi prepare lunch the next day. I expected a 6 o’clock wake up call and was completely disoriented when she knocked on my door at 4:30 and couldn't actually figure out how to exit my room for a couple of minutes! But I wasn’t going to miss the chance for a one-on-one cooking lesson with my host mom so I wandered into the kitchen and pitched right in. She already had a pot of rice ready for sushi and rice-stuffed-tofu pouches (they had been marinated in some sort of sweet sauce and are absolutely delicious!) so I don’t even want to guess what time she woke up at. After I prepared the tofu pouches, she taught me how to make two of my favourite foods, tamago-yaki (fried rolled egg) and onigiri. Then we made some fried squid, packed everything into a bento box and wrapped it with furoshiki (traditional Japanese cloth) and greeted Hiroaki and the kids as they came down for breakfast. Yoshimi and I had snacked a little on the food we were preparing so we just had cups of
Oden
The dreaded oden. The red cylindrical thing is actually some sort of fish-paste sausage...not one of my favourite items, I dare say! coffee.
The kids left for their rehearsal at about 8 but the adults hung around until 9:30 at which point the Obaasan (grandmother - Hiroaki’s mother) and Obasans (aunts - Yoshimi’s older sisters) met us at the house. My Japanese isn’t very good yet, but it’s getting to the point where I can have simple conversations, though I do cause frequent hold ups to consult my dictionary on new words. The family is so warm, even with new people I felt right at home. The weather was sunny and warm until the festival ended.
After that weekend things began to look up again. I decided that I wouldn’t stay at school past 5:30 unless there was a really good reason. To be honest there’s not much to do around here if you aren’t at school or having a drinking party so I have started filling my time with exercise. I go to the pool about 2-3 times per week (the other ALTs come too, sometimes) and have started running again. I bought new running shoes and a Pilates DVD (in Japanese, no less) so I’m feeling really enthusiastic about getting fit again. It helps that there is so
Family Picnic
Everyone taking a lunch break. We ate so much that day, it was crazy. much in Shibushi I haven’t explored. Just last week, I found a path that takes me along the coast for a bit. I’m not sure the overall feeling is as good as running by the Bow in Calgary since Shibushi’s port is really industrial and the rest of the coast is flanked by highway but at sunset it’s still really beautiful.
I’ve also spent more time at home. My furniture arrived last week and I did more cleaning on Saturday. I bleached EVERY inch of my toilet room (scrubbing all of the previous owner’s pee off the front of the toilet - ew!) and shower room and moved my clothing. Finally my house is beginning to feel like a sanctuary and not a place to be avoided. I’ve actually been enjoying curling up on the sofa (after the spider survey, of course) with the Harry Potter book I borrowed from school and I’m really looking forward to cuddling up under my
kotatsu (heated table) in winter.
Finally, I’ve decided to take it easy. My weekends are still jam-packed with activities but I’m keeping them more local. Big trips to the city and further are fun but really draining
The Spread
All the food - close up. and I always feel like I could use one more day off when I get back. I’ve still managed to have a load of fun by staying home, though. This weekend I backed out of a “Party in Paradise” that was happening on one of the southern islands in favour of spending time with people here. It ended up being a great decision! On Saturday after cleaning my house, I joined a bunch of ALTs and Japanese Teachers at Andrew’s for a wonderful BBQ. I made it an early night, though since I had plans to help Otsuji-sensei (one of my fellow English teachers) harvest his mother-in-law’s rice at 8 on Sunday.
Otsuji-sensei is the same teacher that brought me eggplants and green peppers when I first arrived. I’ve wanted to participate in some agricultural stuff since I got here so when he mentioned that he was planning to harvest rice this weekend I asked if I could help. He seemed a bit surprised at my request but he obliged. On Sunday, while my friends Nathaniel and Lucy were still passed out at my house (they partied much later than I did on Saturday night) I met Otsuji and
International Flavour
Strings of these flags were strung all over the school yard. It made me feel quite welcome! his wife at their house and we headed off for total
inaka (countryside). Every time we go to a more rural area people think I’m going to be shocked. I guess they just don’t understand that the west can be this rural too in some places.
On our way to the farm we stopped at the mother-in-law’s eggplant and green pepper patch and Otsuji and his wife picked a bagful for me. It's sad that the eggplant season is ending...it's one of my favourite cooking ingredients! When we got to the house they gave me another bagful of chestnuts, over a dozen fresh eggs, some bitter cucumbers, several persimmons from trees in the neighbourhood and a several pounds of rice. Otsuji’s mother-in-law was a wonderful lady, full of gusto even at 74 years old and I was glad that I had brought along a Canadian souvenir (a Canada tea-towel from The Bay) to exchange. She had actually finished the rice harvest on her own the day before so with no work for us to do we headed to a nearby park for lunch. The weather has been just beautiful here so we took our time eating, taking pictures and
Kyoshi Competes
One of the games the kids competed in. walking through the camping area where Otsuji insisted on introducing me to a large family that was picnicking there. They gave me some roasted chestnuts to try and would have fed me a full meal if we hadn’t just eaten.
That night I went to Mai’s for dinner expecting to meet her new puppy but finding that they had already given it to some family friends who they thought could better care for it. Instead I got to meet her dad, who usually lives in Fukuoka, about 5 hours north of us; her older brother, a French chef in Tokyo; and his girlfriend, Asami, a hairdresser. Dinner was wonderful and included an assortment of Chinese, Japanese and French food followed by a cookie version of Millefeuilles and fruit. Mai’s dad seems really nice and had a lot of questions about Canada. We all hung around until midnight chatting and drinking Shochu and having our hair cut by Asami. I received my first Japanese haircut and it actually looks great! I may have to go to Tokyo for the next one, though.
Monday, I tagged along with Yoshimi, the kids and the obasans for some shopping in the city.
Getting Ready
The kids waiting to start the opening ceremony. First they all march onto the field, do a warm up and then the games begin. It is absolutely amazing how organized they all are. The 10 and 11 year-olds play a big part in the general unfolding of the event and at the high school level they seem to do everything for it. Japan is a very organized society. We went to one of the upper-class malls with Louis Vuitton and Hermes and had fun looking at all the stuff we couldn’t afford (we saw a Louis Vuitton hair elastic being sold for $700.00. It was cute but I’m not sure what kind of occasion you would wear it for…) I tried on a few items at some of the cheaper stores but was frustrated because my hips are too big for their skirts and my shoulders too wide for their shirts. I could have sworn I fit a size 7 back home...maybe I'm just getting fat and not realizing it! I did find a GAP (where I still fit a size small) so my craving for some new clothing was satiated nonetheless.
So those are my last two weeks in a nutshell. The students are having their mid-terms this week so Andrew and I don’t have any classes. It’s nice for today but tomorrow we will be doing a lot of correcting. I’m thrilled to have this chance to post an update, though I’m sorry to leave you with so much to read. I’ll try to make more frequent postings when I get internet access at home.
Genki Obaachan
Hiroaki's mom.
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Kelly Hyde
non-member comment
Thank you for sharing
Hi Emilie It sounds like you are experiencing so many new adventures but I can certainly see that you're missing home. I admire your courage and remember that you have more strength than you know. The pictures are beautiful and I love your stories - except for the ones about the spiders as I share your dislike for them and cringe when I read about all of your new creepy friends. Take care and please keep in touch - and remember we're all still here thinking of you. Luv, Kelly